Aspiring scientist Wayne Szalinski has invented a special machine that is supposed to shrink things. However, it only causes them to explode, which is highly frustrating for Wayne.

Meanwhile, his teenage daughter, Amy, is talking on the phone. Her younger brother, Nick, is also interested in inventing. But like their mother, Diane, they are concerned about their father and his inventions.

Simultaneously, their next door neighbors, Mae and Russ Thompson, are preparing to take their sons, [Little] Russ and Ron, on a family fishing trip. But Little Russ is uninterested.

At some point, Wayne leaves for a conference. But Ron accidentally gets a baseball to break the window into the Szalinski house. Little Russ forces Ron to confess to Nick and Amy, that he was responsible for that.

Shortly after, the kids go to the attic to retrieve the ball. But without warning, Wayne’s machine shrinks them to a quarter of an inch tall. The children are shocked. Yet they also come across a shrunken couch that was resized by the same machine.

Meanwhile, at the conference, Wayne is talking about his machine. However, nobody in the audience will believe him. In fact, most of them get up and leave.

Once Wayne is back at home and in the attic, the shrunken kids try to get his attention. Unfortunately, he cannot hear them. Only the Szalinski family dog, Quark, can hear the children.

But every time Quark barks to alert Wayne, he shuts him up. Then Wayne discovers the broken window. Frustrated, he tries to destroy his machine. Even though the children learned that Wayne can’t hear them, they try to convince him to stop anyway.

Yet he sweeps the debris and accidentally gets the kids there, too. Luckily, they escape and are in the backyard.

However, to their shock, walking back to the house will take several hours thanks to their tiny sizes. Yet they remain determined and will not stop at anything to surrender.

But a bee, which is drastically larger than them interferes and ends up separating the children. This is now making their mission more complicated.

Simultaneously, Big Russ and Mae notice that their sons are missing. Scared, they cancel their fishing trip and file a report for missing children.

Wayne, however, realizes that his machine actually worked. But he also learns that it means the kids were shrunken. So, he goes out into the backyard to search for them.

Sometime later, Wayne tells Diane that he actually, but unintentionally, shrunk both their children and the Thompson kids. Diane is astounded. But Big Russ and Mae won’t believe them.

The kids use a cookie crumb to attract an ant that will take them back to the house. When night falls, the children decide to sleep in a lego piece. Amy and Little Russ also fall in love with each other.

But their journey is interrupted when a scorpion tries to attack them. Stakes are beginning to rise.

Can they still make it back to the house and return to their original sizes?

I was deeply surprised with how funny this movie was. I constantly laughed hysterically – too many times to count.

Aside from the humor, I admired the characters and their relationships to one another. For instance, I loved how both the Thompson and Szalinski kids worked together to get back to the house. Adding tension between the other 3 and Ron, as well as romance between Amy and Little Russ, made it even more interesting.

The conflict between the adults was also done well, especially with humor. I particularly liked when Wayne said things that annoyed the Thompsons.

Speaking of which, the actor who played Wayne, Rick Moranis, did a good job making his voice sound older compared to previous movies he was in. He was also in his mid-thirties when this film was shot.

As a science fiction movie, world building played a big role. One part that stands out to me was how if you’re a quarter of an inch tall, it will take you much longer to get somewhere versus if you’re a normal human height. And the other part is how, if you’re that tiny, regular sized people can’t hear you.

Despite the strengths, though, there was a small weakness. That was including gross moments in a family-friendly flick, such as a river of dog urine. Yes, you read that right. I covered that part up along with some other revolting scenes.

But overall, I enjoyed Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. It’s blend of comedy and science fiction was executed very well.

I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.